


to achilles, with love

by LyriumTainted



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Found Poetry, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Inspired by Eros and Psyche (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Inspired by The Fall of Icarus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Literature, Love Poems, Multi, Original Fiction, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other, Poetry, Prose Poem, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Slam Poetry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 4,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyriumTainted/pseuds/LyriumTainted
Summary: This is just a poetry book I’ve been working on for a while;It’s a mix of several different styles and types of poems, including a few definition poems, memory poems, free style, and slam.They’re all mine, and snippets of or full poems that inspired me are all credited and never copied word for word as one of my own.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

_ “ perhaps someday i’ll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. _

_ but not as long as i can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow. ” _

  * _Sylvia Plath_



  
  
  
  


_ “ do i dare _

_ disturb the universe? _

_ in a minute there is time _

_ for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. “ _

  * _T. S. Eliot_




	2. dedication / acknowledgements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a very long acknowledgement list

for achilles, son of peleus, son of thetis:  
all things soft and beautiful and bright endure.


	3. untitled (1)

i. i am on my friend’s floor, getting ready for a dance that is not meant for me. there are flowers in my hair and glitter on my face and i am convinced i am the luckiest person alive. i am next to a friend and i think she is the most beautiful girl in the world as she puts on makeup. her hair is pink and she is in the middle of putting on lipstick, and we aren’t best friends anymore- if we ever were- but i am happy just to know her. i wasn’t her first choice to bring but i have never minded being last when it felt this fun.

ii. my dad is on the couch without his usual hat on his head and glasses on his nose and he is thinking that he did not get to see my dress on me or the way it looked under the lights of a delicate forest. he had been home for a day and i was already an adult, on a date that is not a date that reminds him that he does not know what advice to give me. he thinks there is nothing left he can share that i do not already know but everything he tells me will always be important; whether it is that he loves me or to always carry pepper spray, or that there are men out there with sharp teeth and cheap disguises- there is always something there that i will always want to hear.

iii. there are too many sparkles on my friend’s dress to count but they catch my eyes anyway. i think about how my sister will look at her first prom and if she will still be my sister as that time, or if she will be my brother- if she will get ready at home, would she let me help her? we were not always the best of friends but in the moment i think of her and i think of a happy home. somehow i always think of her when i’m doing makeup and expect her to show up every time with something new to show me that she drew.

iv. my sister is three years younger but she does not act like it. her mind is on the game she is playing and the conversation that she is having with our dad but it’s more like a conversation with herself. she is in a boss battle and declaring her love for one of the characters like they are alive, something she picked up from her older sister, an action that her dad doesn’t quite understand. she is mid-button-mash in a fight she has already played too many times.

v. there are stains on my friend’s carpet from the last time i got ready for a dance there. the foundation i spilled is no longer in my life but i still remember how it made me orange and how i tried putting white facepaint with it to make it paler. the stain reminds me that i have less than an hour to get ready for a dance and that my friend will no longer be my friend in a few short weeks, forever has never felt as short as this.

vi. my mom is not excited that her oldest daughter, the first to make it past sophomore year without failing or dropping out, is going to prom. she is surrounded by women buying into an mlm and she could not be more bored. her world is at another house with other kids, a different family. she’s not even aware of her thoughts, they just bounce around in her head.

vii. there are pieces of makeup thrown around my friend’s room, a mess that was very fun to make. i have only been here two times but it already a comfortable place to be. i’ll never be here again, so i should savour this time. we forever miss the littlest moments in life.


	4. I’ve  never broken a bone

I’ve never broken a bone

My jaw is worn and used  
cracked on the right side from too many clumsy moments,  
but not  
broken  
my teeth are chipped and rugged  
from too much candy and not enough care

Once,   
my brother,  
a baseball player,  
swung his bat  
just a little too close  
and all i tasted  
was grass  
and old metal  
But I don't know if that came from the bat  
or the blood from my gums  
where the skin had broken open

And that's how  
my earliest memory  
came to be.

Once, i tripped on the stairs  
outside,   
the wood soft  
from years of endurance  
long before i existed,  
that led up to my house  
and bit down harshly  
coming up with my teeth  
pushed into the soft peel of my chin

Blood, like juice,  
came from the wound

A peach of flesh  
bitten into

Accidentally

My teeth showed through;  
pearly white  
and proud   
of the new window   
they had made  
in the curve of my lip

[Later, I was proud, too  
proud of the scars that it yielded  
battle-scars, I called them 

They were proof.  
proof of the memory it made.  
that i had existed  
if   
for a brief moment  
in pain]


	5. bewitching

/bə’wiCHiNG/  
adjective 

i. you’ve got an unkempt mane and daisies in your hair,  
a sky littered with stars.  
everyone you touch becomes a canvas under your palms,  
lost souls would do anything to watch how you paint yourself on everyone else.

ii. before you are a person,  
before bones and smiles and messy hair,  
before you are a beating heart and breathing lungs,  
you are a graveyard of stars, the remnants of winters past.  
the sun and moon hold their breath in the wake of your existence.  
a reminder that your creation was not a mistake.

iii. like the remains of god,  
you are brighter than the stars could ever be.  
they are envious of how you shine.  
like liquid silver, an image of perfection.  
a lure designed to draw people in and never let them go.  
a lasting infatuation.


	6. i miss you

friend  
/frend/  
noun

i. i met you when we were both young  
my parents drove all the way to iowa for you;  
for someone i’d call my friend for the rest of my life-  
or at least that’s what i thought.  
i was naive but it was blissful,   
i thought you were the greatest thing in the world  
[i still do, really]

ii. before the bad, there was the good-  
or, really, the lucky.  
one halloween, you ate an entire bag of chocolate.  
you were so lucky you didn’t die on the spot.  
over the years you’d steal all kinds of human food from us.  
you’d steal from the counter when we weren’t looking  
you’d eat the cat food despite having your own bowl of your own dog food  
you would beg with those sad brown eyes for our pizza crust,  
you’d wait at our feet for one of us to “accidentally” drop food we didn’t like.  
when you got impatient, you’d dance-  
we’d never known a dog to dance when they begged,  
but we’d never had a dog as silly as you.

iii. i wasn’t always the best friend to you.  
there were days where i barely said hi to you when i got home  
days where i should’ve played with you and instead i played on the tv  
[those days will always be my biggest regret in life]  
you were always my best friend;  
you were loud and playful  
and liked to bark at everyone you saw.  
those nights in my backyard   
chasing fireflies and kissing frogs  
will always be with me;  
and the summer days where you got out  
or ate bees even though you knew as well as i did that it never ended well  
[i miss those days more than i miss anything else i’ve ever lost]

iv. the day after my birthday we said goodbye.  
[i guess you’d really been saying goodbye for a while.]  
in your own way, you’d already known.  
[animals are like that; they know when their time is up.]  
you’d been sleeping upstairs for a change  
your hearing was gone  
you didn’t bark at strangers  
you couldn’t jump anymore.  
that last one is when we really started understanding,  
but it wasn’t until that day in july when i had to face it.  
after my birthday, we said goodbye.  
they said you’d been sick for a while  
that there was nothing they could do  
but make it comfortable.  
a tumor had grown,  
tangling your insides  
[insidious]  
and leaving us little choice  
but to end it before it ended you.  
so that’s what we did.  
but we left early  
your last moments weren’t with your people like they should’ve been  
instead you were in a cold white room  
with a woman you didn’t know.  
and i’ll never forget how small you looked  
lying on a towel on the white floor.  
[how sad it is to leave a friend behind.]


	7. Arcadian

/är ‘kādēən/  
adjective 

like fireflies in a jar,  
the sky glitters and shines.  
tall grass brushes against jean and fingers tangle in hair,  
warm breath grazes warmer skin--

darling, you’re of arcadia.

like walking poetry,  
something the greeks would write epics about  
name cities after  
make statues for  
build temples to  
something they would worship--  
aphrodite would be jealous of how much you’re loved.

we thread daisies in your hair and nature finds a harmony with us.  
the grass isn’t soft and the flowers won’t stay forever. a reminder that we are just visitors.  
the earth watches our private moment and keeps it safe; a million years from now,   
the bugs will have reclaimed us,   
embraced us in the dirt we came from,  
and we won’t be remembered for who we are;  
the words we said,  
what we looked like,

we will be remembered as the greeks were;  
not with beating hearts and lungs full of air,  
not fingers that itch to trace your skin  
not with bitten nails and freckled cheeks,  
not with gangly limbs and awkward glances,

but mouths full of verse;   
hearts of gold instead of tissue and blood,  
smooth marble skin instead of the flawed exteriors we boast;  
more art than human,  
more myth than flesh  
more love than bones--  
more legend than lovers.


	8. Deja Vu

/ , dāZHä voŌ/  
noun

we pick flowers from their stems and thread them into crowns and i cant help but feel we’ve been here before;

nature is as violent as she is beautiful and i think we are a perfect reflection of that; when it rains it reminds me of you, thunder and clouds and the feeling of raindrops on my cheeks.  
the sun shines and it is reminiscent of your smile; warm, and welcoming, but will burn me if i’m not careful.

your hands are soft and your teeth are sharp and it feels like we are two lonely girls in a world much too big for comfort.

sometimes it feels like we never changed at all, or like we never will, and im not sure which one is worse;  
the thought of never loving you or the thought of never moving on

we pick flowers from their stems and thread them into crowns and i cant help but feel we’ve been here before.


	9. magnificent

/maɡˈnifəsənt/  
adjective

i. your personality takes up more room than your person.  
when you speak, the words build castles that house your ideas,   
a sea of epiphanies builds a moat and gently pulls others to your library of thoughts, to your dreams that become rivers of ink on a page and smell like late nights and cherry wine

ii. you.  
others scramble to bask in your presence,  
your eyes hold secrets they wish they knew,   
a wealth of knowledge and mistakes that became experience.  
when others ask how you are you, how you became, how you are so great, all you can do is smile and shrug, embarrassed to have let them see something admirable.  
the great never recognise just how big they are, do they?

iii. there is an ocean between you and your happiness, and sometimes you drown in it.  
when i say you drown, i mean you disappear-   
I mean you walk into the waves with a smile and a prophecy and you do not surface.  
others kill themselves to be like you and follow you into the brine;  
they choke on the salty water that you embraced and do not come up for air.

iv. when you come back they will call it a miracle,  
a sign.  
they will herald you a god and put you on a pedestal,  
only you will know the truth and when you try to tell them they will not believe it.  
your name will be a prayer on the lips of children who hope that you will look their way but do not realise that you are just a human  
and you are more alone than ever.

v. they tell you that godhood is supposed to be great but it weighs you down.  
you have died and come back and now others are begging you to bring their loved ones back, the ones that tried to swim and drowned,   
the walking dead beg you to save them but when you answer it is not enough for them  
why must they save themselves when you are there; a marvel to save them all?  
when you tell them how, it is never enough, it never will be,   
but they will learn, just as you did.


	10. Genesis

/ˈjenəsəs/  
noun

i. you break your bones over and over every night just to breathe.  
your body, a hostel to everyone you meet you open yourself up night after night to those who are unworthy and you never demand payment, an apology for all their shortcomings.  
a flower blooms each time you speak.

ii. your ribs crack as your lungs expand and flowers creep up the broken steps,  
their stems wrap and squeeze your bones, keeping them together,  
their roots flood your veins  
lilies and violets bloom in your throat.  
your lungs are so full of petals.  
suffocating has never felt so lovely.

iii. a crown of thorns lay around your skull,  
digging into your flesh and painting your hair, your face, crimson red, but you do not mind.  
every night your bones break and mend and so why would a few barbs bother you now?  
when your skin is like petals you begin to tear so easily that soon you get used to it,  
how easily you are plucked by someone wishing for love,  
thrown away when you do not reciprocate but you drop your roots where you land and regrow;  
and how beautiful it is,  
to watch you learn to mend  
after some child with clumsy hands  
tears out your petals and then gets mad that you are no longer pleasing to him.  
how beautiful it is that you can learn to grow  
after someone burns your leaves  
clips your steam  
leaves you unwatered.

iv. your bones break over and over and daisies grow in place of the fractures.  
butterflies visit the marigolds, and poppies, and dahlias that grow in your stomach,  
the ivy and wisteria that climb your collarbone, the honeysuckle that creeps up your spine and the orchids that sit at its base.  
lavender and heather blossom in your lungs and you are full of life.  
a garden with a beating heart and miles and miles of veins,  
a walking symbol that life can start again after a fire leaves it decimated.


	11. lonely

/lonely/  
adjective 

It settles in your bones and holds tight, wrapping around your lungs and never letting go-  
holding you by the glow of the oven light, the glow of the streetlamp, the flicker of my phone-  
flitting from light to light, like a moth to a flame, always looking for something to hold on to, something that is never going to stay

how easy it would be  
to just get rid of it;  
take too many meds  
walk too close to the road  
tie the rope too tight

sadness that isn’t just sadness,  
sleeping in your chest,  
making your legs feel heavy  
a yawn that never quite leaves your mouth;  
a graveyard of dreams half dreamt and left at the edge of sleep


	12. effulgent

/effulgent/  
noun

my face peels from the burn as i smile and it hurts but its worth it; summers are happy as they are painful, a reminder of my home but also the future,

we spend the nights under the stars and tell stories about who we could become, like we ever saw ourselves getting old  
the summer heat bruises my skin and all i do is complain but i have never had a better time- the sun is bright and so is your laugh, a sound i’ll never grow tired of

the smell of smoke never leaves and i’ve never liked the way it lingers in my hair and on my skin, even after i’ve showered, but you love the fire  
the emptiness never leaves my bones but sometimes it gets lighter, the seemingly-permanent rot leaving little by little,  
as if chased by the blaze.  
most days i want to disappear, but those summer nights i wished i could glow in the dark, be as bright as you seem to think i am. most days i dont want to leave my bed but somehow the idea of enduring the beach isn’t as bad when it’s with you.

even the doctors would be envious of how you get me to suddenly forget all my problems, as if the words ‘melancholy’ and ‘anxiety’ don’t exist when you’re around.

the smell of smoke is all that’s left of you now. a trail of it follows me wherever i go and sometimes it seems like you’re still there; you’re not. it’s just a memory, permanently burned into the world around me.


	13. untitled (2)

i. sometimes you swim in the ocean and sometimes you drown  
when i say you drown, i mean your head goes under and you cannot see which way is up but somehow you are still breathing,  
you are still breathing.

ii. the waves crash against the shore, bringing you with and so you crash too.  
when i say you crash, i mean you fall and can’t seem to pick yourself up there are cuts on your hands and your knees are bruised but your bones aren’t broken and you can still walk,  
can’t you?  
when they tell you it could be worse, you agree, but not how they wanted.  
it could be worse. you could walk into the water and never come back, let them search day and night and when they cry for you, whisper ‘it could be worse’.

iii. there is a fervour in breathing in the water; the salty sting doesn’t hurt so much anymore.

iv. your drowning doesn’t have to be public for the water to fill your lungs.  
the foamy waves block your nose and clears your head of oxygen and you have never felt so light.  
amphitrite may have been queen of the sea but she has nothing on the way the water seems to hold you; the way the waves caress your cheek and combs your hair.  
the sinking makes your body feel like air and concrete, like a stone dropping and a feather falling, all in one. the way the water devours your breath almost makes it feel like home; drowning has never felt so soft,  
the tide kisses you harshly and you are already gone.

v. how icy the waves feel tonight.


	14. Synesthesia

/ˌsinəsˈTHēZHə/  
noun

i. i know a girl like fireworks / she has a texture like dry bristle brushes / like if sparklers were fabric / she is a raspberry red and faith tells me a colour has never suited her better. /

ii. / my best friend is baby blue / the texture of sunlight filtered through clouds / he is warm even when at his worst / he is the sun on your skin / the blue of the sky on a summer day /  
/ the stars / the moon / forget-me-nots in spring /  
/ he is a blue that stains my skin /  
/ how blue, how blue, how blue / 

iii. / my father is an ocean of blue and my brother is not much different / my dad is blue /  
/ he is deep-sea water / the slosh of the waves against rocks / seafoam and air bubbles after a storm /  
/ a blue so close to black / it’s hard to tell the difference /  
/ how blue, how blue, how blue / 

iv. / my brother is blue / the blue of space / space and water and clouds /  
a texture i could never explain /  
/ the blue of summer evenings coming to an end / the blue of stargazing with your friends / the blue of a kid with a broken home /  
/ how blue, how blue, how blue /

v. / i see people in colours and textures / a painting instead of a person / artwork instead of heartbeat /  
/ some people are green watercolour / some are grey fog / red ink and red pencil / pink chalk / textures like fireworks and space and if clouds were solids /  
/ and some people are blue / ocean blue / blue like feathers / like eggshell pieces underfoot / like the sky behind sails / like sharp / wind in winter / bitter and harsh / or sweet and warm / a blue that won’t wash off of my hands /  
how blue, how blue, how blue /


	15. untitled (3)

how do you write a letter to someone who doesn’t exist?  
how do you write a letter to a heart that doesn’t beat?  
how do you tell a man that he did not die?

how shall i tell him of my thoughts?  
how shall i share my feelings?  
do i tell of how i, too, am a myth?  
how the only trace of my existence is also through stories?  
maybe we knew each other once,  
two children fighting the wars of our parents;  
maybe we met on the field,  
maybe on opposing sides.  
maybe we knew the truth,  
maybe they were just lies.

do i tell him what he already knows?  
that he was a boy as radiant as the sun,  
who fell just as quickly?

do i tell him of dreams,  
of running barefoot through meadows?  
do i tell him of the hunger  
that burrows deep in my soul?  
maybe i tell him of after his death,  
and the mourning of men,

or maybe something simple

a truth more personal

maybe i’ll write:

“for achilles,  
with love”,

and i’ll end it there. 


	16. untitled (4)

i stand where great monuments once stood,  
that now are only great ruins,  
crumbling even still, when there is nothing left to crumble.  
it’s like looking at a photograph.  
i can see where the greatness used to be,  
i can see the ghost of a young blond with his head thrown back mid-laughter,  
see the sun filtering through the image of his lover, making the brunet’s hair turn to a warm caramel;  
smiles amidst a war, laughter despite the blood  
there is a hunger in his soul that the blond does not want to acknowledge,  
he is destined for greatness, and oh, how he craves it,  
but it must wait  
there is time for vengeance and time for carnage,  
but now is the time for warmth; the time for love and tenderness  
he would worship his lover forever if the brunet would let him,  
“patroclus,” he sounds, and it is the only thing he wants to say for the rest of his life,  
“patroclus”, “patroclus”, “patroclus”.  
a mantra of his devotion-  
his lover would never die,  
not as long as the sun still warmed men’s faces,  
as long as orchids still bloomed along his home island,  
as long as orange trees still budded and blossomed,  
lavender and iris may grow along his lover’s bones when he returned to the earth,  
but he would never die.  
achilles would still hold him in his arms even in death.  
not even hades would separate them


	17. Suicide Notes or Love Letters

10 Lines from Suicide Notes or Love Letters

1\. “I’ll be waiting, don’t take too long.”  
2\. “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”  
3\. “I don’t know why destiny brought us together,”  
4\. “Somehow I can’t possibly say all in a letter I should like to.”  
5\. “There are such wide abysses of space and land now between us.”

the words love letters use are built upon are the remains of those no longer with us.

6\. “I just miss you, in a quite simple, desperate human way.”  
7\. “I have always loved you.”  
8\. “My love, you are in my heart.”  
9\. “I really had fun.”  
10\. “It seems as if I have been spending all my life apologising to you for things that happened whether they were my fault or not.”  
fame has killed more people than sharks ever have, and yet we still fear them more. the dark and bats and spiders could never amass a body count like fame has  
and yet we still covet it; more kings and actors have been killed than those haunted by ghosts and still we fear spirits more than royalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is obviously inspired by the poem 14 Lines from Love Letters or Suicide Notes by Doc Luben


	18. for achilles

a love that lasts past time and sand,  
that awaits day’s golden light at the break of each new dawn,  
a longing to entwine your unearthly hands.  
even in death, from your mouth his name is drawn.

you died twice;  
once with him,  
and then once again.  
he was half of your soul,  
and now thats all the two of you are.  
souls.  
two souls made of memories and faded promises.

in a million years you will still seek him out,  
in life and through death,  
if you were blind and he were deaf  
there will never be anything but him.

the only promise life ever gives is in the parting of your lips,  
in the illumination of his breath in the morning air  
the ghosting of his hands along your jaw  
the whisper of his voice as sleep wraps you in its arms  
the only promise life has ever kept, has been him.


	19. we used to be okay

Missing you  
Is as easy as breathing  
“I miss you”; in  
“I miss you”; out   
We are sitting on the bones of old loves and everything is fine

Longing is in my blood,  
It’s in the way I say good morning  
And the way I say good night  
It’s on my lips when I leave  
And in my hands when I come home;  
The way I make our beds,  
And the way I tie my shoes,  
The way I miss you is in my breath,  
And the words I give to you.

I miss when you would hold my hand,  
And tell me it’s alright.  
I miss the way you smiled at me  
When you came home for the night   
When you weren’t quite as empty  
And eyes were full of life  
And now the house is quiet  
Where a family used to live  
Now only houses us;  
Two empty people  
Their problems and their beds.


	20. mother or monster

‘mother’ and ‘monster’ are only two letters apart;

i watched her wither when i was young,

replaced by something i no longer knew


	21. god is missing

what do you love when you’re dead?

when you no longer know the face of god?

if i am, then so god is,

but when i am gone,

where is god?

a million dark seas,

billions of stars;

you and i and all the people in between

if they are,

then is god?

the wind and the roses and the birds and the bees

the shadows cast by sunset 

the rain after a storm

if that is, then god is,

but if shadows move and disappear,

if the rain stops,

if the roses and wind die,

and the bees go to sleep

where is god?

what do we love when we’re gone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i call this ‘i have a very strained relationship with religion and cope by consuming media mentioning it and creating things questioning the existence of a god’.


End file.
